


Hodnes/Kwelnes/Ufnes

by dreamsheartstory



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4990792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsheartstory/pseuds/dreamsheartstory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which Lexa learns about love and strength and weakness in the shade of an apple tree</p><p>OR</p><p>the story of how Lexa met Costia</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hodnes/Kwelnes/Ufnes

**Author's Note:**

> for how short this fic is there's a decent amount of trigedasleng in it. i've translated it all at the end so if you aren't like me (and have dreams you wake up from at 2am to scribble down dialogue in a made up language) you may want to go take a look at that before you start reading.  
> also, if you notice any errors (or potential errors) in my translations let me know.

Lexa is ten the first time she meets Costia and the girl dares her to climb the tall tree by the river. Her skin is tanned and warm and there's a calculating mischief in her eyes that rivals Lexa's own. Lexa has never climbed higher than the bottom branches, always too small to reach.

"I dare you to climb that tree and bring me an apple."

"Why would I do that?"

"I'll give you a kiss if you fetch me a perfect apple from the highest branches."

"And what makes you think I'd want to kiss you."

"Don't you?"

Lexa huffs and crosses her arms across her chest, _"Hodnes laik kwelnes."_

 _"No, hodnes laik ufnes._ It gives you strength."

"Get your own apple."

 

The second time she sees Costia with her hair wild and curly like a mane, she is still ten but it’s been a long summer and she’s almost forgotten about the _Floukru_ girl who was more at home running through the swaying branches of the trees than down on the sturdy earth. Lexa is crouched at the top of the apple tree on the river banks watching the boats come in. Anya will be angry but she loves watching them. When she sees a dark figure dart between the branches below her she knows it’s the apple girl.

Lexa bides her time, an apple clutched in her long fingers. Over the summer she grew and now she’s all limbs as she crouches barefoot on a branch as skinny as her arm. When the girl is beneath her she drops the apple.

_“Dison laik gon yu!”_

“Ow!” The girl looks up and spots Lexa. _“Gada kom trikru!_ What was that for?”

“You wanted an apple,” Lexa shrugs.

“That was months ago,” she rubs her head.

“You never said when you wanted it,” she sticks out her tongue.

 _“Chit yu gaf?_ A kiss?”

Lexa cocks her head to the side watching the girl below her, “You’ll have to catch me first.”

“What’s your name?”

“Lexa.”

She crouchs for a moment and jumps catching the branch just below Lexa’s feet. When she pulls herself up she is level with Lexa, eye to eye, and there’s a smirk on her lips, _“Ai laik Kostia.”_

Lexa’s eyes go wide and she swallows thickly staring into dark blue eyes warm with laughter. She purses her lips. She needs to learn to not be surprised and to read others better. Anya has hinted that she may be destined for greatness and this will not do.

 _“Hodnes laik kwelnes,”_ she whispers.

Costia shakes her head and laughs before leaning forward and kissing Lexa on the lips. _“Leida Lexa!”_ she laughs as she jumps down the branches and dives into the river.

 _“Leida,”_ Lexa says to the air, wondering exactly what just happened and what this fluttering feeling in her stomach is.

 

Her eleventh summer passes in a flurry of scrapes and bruises and a broken finger that never heals quite right. She chases Costia through the treetops, but can never catch her, and they tell each other stories about their lives outside of the apple tree while gorging themselves on sweet fruit as they lay in the shade.

 

The summer she is twelve she climbs the apple tree every day. She jumps from the low branches to the high branches, learning to crouch and leap. When she breaks her arm she refuses to tell Anya how it happened. That summer the boats never come. When the leaves turn gold and red she balances at the top of the tree and whispers to the wind, hodnes laik kwelnes.

 

The winter she turns thirteen the war starts. When summer comes she has two kill scars on her shoulder and her first tattoo, a small tree symbol at the base of her spine. She waits in the apple tree with two daggers strapped to her hips and a blade on her back. Costia scales the tree with a bow on her back and quiver of arrows fletched with blue feathers the same color as her eyes. _Trikru_ and _Floukru_ are at war, all of the clans are.

They sit on the branch that dangles out over the water, knees touching. Costia pulls an apple from the pouch on her hip, takes a bite and hands it to Lexa who nods and takes a bite before passing it back. It’s sweet and crisp and she can’t remember the last time she had something so decadent. She swallows down her tears. They share the apple eating through the core in silence.

“I missed you last year.”

“Your clan was planning war. I broke my arm.”

_“Yu laik pis?”_

“Not with you. _Yumi nou ste nouseim._ ”

Costia is watching Lexa who is rigid and alert. Lexa is watching the horizon for boats. When Costia scoots closer she holds her breath.

_“Yu wich ai in?”_

Lexa dips her chin, just the slightest movement as she turns to look at Costia. She’s staring into eyes bluer than the river water, Costia’s rich dark curls which once bounced and swayed every time she laughed are tamed into an intricate weave of braids that falls down her shoulders. She misses the freedom and the chaos. Costia’s lips are soft against hers and when Costia parts them in a messy kiss Lexa is eager to follow. The butterflies in her stomach are in her lungs and she forgets for a moment she’s perched above a river and that she doesn’t know how to swim. All that she knows is that Costia tastes like apples and home.

It’s Costia that saves her from falling onto the rocks on the bank of the river. She doesn’t tell Anya how she cut her arm.

 

The next time Lexa sees Costia she is fourteen and has six kill scars on her shoulder, two are fresh. She hasn’t forgotten Costia or the taste of apples, but two of her kills are _Floukru_ and she is afraid Costia won’t come. She waits at the base of the tree with a dagger in her hand.

 _“Mela op. Loka au,”_ Costia’s voice is rich and sweet like the apples they share. She’s laughing.

Lexa can’t bring herself to laugh. She’s a _Trikru_ warrior and no one should be able to sneak up on her, especially not a _Floukru_ in a tree. Costia jumps down. She is barefoot and three inches taller than Lexa. She traces her fingers along the scars on Lexa’s shoulder, she taps the last one with her forefinger.

“My mentor.”

Lexa nods and swallows thickly her throat working against her, she purses her lips and tenses her jaw. She waits for the blow to come. _Jus drein jus daun_. Instead Costia leans her forehead against Lexa’s. She stills under the touch, not sure what it means. Her stomach flutters like it always does when Costia is near. The feeling she can never shake, the one Anya says she needs to ignore. The kiss is a chaste press of lips and Lexa turns to leave. Costia catches her by the fingertips.

“I wish this would end. _Oso gaf hukop in.”_

_“Sha.”_

 

At fifteen they meet at night. Lexa’s village is on fire. The _Azgeda_ have come down from the north and the mountain men are burning them all with acid fog. _Trikru_ and _Floukru_ are fighting side by side, as long as their enemies are alive, and even that is tenuous. Lexa knows how dangerous this is but when she looks at Costia she doesn’t care. Every time she sees an _Azgeda_ with a blue arrow through their heart she knows she has a friend at her back.

This time there is nothing left to say, so when Costia kisses her, Lexa kisses her back because she needs something that isn’t death and blood. It’s a disaster, unpracticed, hurried and needy. She can feel them burning up with it. There has to be more to life than war and she thinks of the taste of apples as they come undone.

In the morning they wake to Anya watching them.

“This is stupid.”

_“Dison laik hodnes.”_

_“Hodnes laik kwelnes.”_

_“Hodnes laik ufnes.”_

Anya drags Lexa back to camp and tells her that one day that love will get her killed.

 

Lexa is sixteen and she has ten kill scars and wings freshly tattooed on her back. When the sun rose that morning she knew the commander of the tree people is dead and that the commander of the tree people is alive. She is two people now. She is Lexa but she is also The Commander. _Heda kom trikru._ Lexa left before breakfast, before her people knew she was the commander. She won’t face this alone.

She’s standing at the top of the apple tree on a branch skinnier than her forearm looking for boats. Anya is going to be so angry. She sighs and sits down and waits.

 _“Heda?”_ Costia’s voice below is warm like the honey and apples that they sneak when they run away on summer nights. Lexa closes her eyes. She nods.

When she opens them Costia is sitting in front of her, their knees are touching. Her hair is loose, curls bouncing free and caught in the wind. Her blue eyes sparkle.

“I want to unite the clans. I want the wars to end.”

Costia reaches out and cups Lexa’s chin in her hand, “My green eyed tree girl stands in the tops of trees like they are crows nests. She moves with the wind and can see beyond the horizon. And she tastes like apples. _Chit em gaf, em na gada in.”_

When Costia kisses her she feels like the world will bend to her will. She whispers against dusky lips, “Hodnes laik ufnes.”

 

During her seventeenth year she has accomplished what no other commander has ever tried to do, she has united eight of the twelve clans and soon the others will fall in line. The _Azgeda_ resist the strongest but she knows even their _kwin_ will bow to her one day. For now they are at war, the Commander’s girl is the one that took from them one of their greatest warriors, a blue fletched arrow through the eye. _Jus drein jus daun._

They steal Costia in the dead of night, torture her, and return her head. It is not a proper death.

She learns what it means to lead. That you must make decisions with your head and not your heart. That when Anya told her _hodnes laik kwelnes_ she meant that love would make her life harder. That Lexa would feel weak even as The Commander was strong.

Lexa feels herself die on Costia’s funeral pyre. Her blue eyed warrior. She will never eat another apple as long as she lives. _Hodnes laik kwelnes._ Lexa can never be weak again. The _Azgeda_ agree to the coalition before the snow falls that winter.

 

At twenty Lexa sits on her throne made from the branches of an old apple tree a dagger balanced between her fingers as she waits for the _Skaikru_ girl that killed three hundred of her warriors. When she looks up into deep blue eyes more vibrant than the river on a summer day she forgets how to breath.

_Hodnes._

_Kwelnes._

_Ufnes._

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Hodness laik kwelnes = Love is weakness  
> Hodness laik ufnes = Love is strength  
> Floukru = Boat People  
> Trikru = Tree people  
> Dison laik gon yu! = This one’s for you!  
> Gada kom trikru! = Tree girl!  
> Chit yu gaf? = What do you want?  
> Ai laik Kostia = I am Costia  
> Leida Lexa! = Bye Lexa!  
> Yu laik pis? = Are you angry?  
> Yumi nou ste nouseim = We are not so different.  
> Yu wich ai in? = Do you trust me?  
> Mela op. Loka au. = Heads up. Eyes open.  
> Jus drein jus daun = Blood must have blood  
> Oso gaf hokup in = We need an alliance.  
> Sha = Yes  
> Heda kom trikru = Commander of the tree people  
> Azgeda = Ice Nation  
> Dison laik hodnes = this is love  
> Chit em gaf, em na gada in = what she wants, she will have  
> Kwin = Queen


End file.
